Submitted by Version 7 of the editor VIM has been released. New features include spell checking, completion, tabs, intelligent undo, and much more. “Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is often called a ‘programmer’s editor,’ and so useful for programming that many consider it an entire IDE. It’s not just for programmers, though. Vim is perfect for all kinds of text editing, from composing email to editing configuration files.” Get it here.
Bloated. Less is more
Are you sure? I’ve been using Vim for quite some time and I really think some of its features are really handy at crucial times.
And its very snappy…
I think the development is rather well-thought out and gives the user a good choice. And if you really are tight on space, Vi would rather be a better option.
But, as always, too many features don’t make a good app.
>>>Bloated. Less is more<<<
It’s hard to say that a shell/console text editor like VIM suffers from bloat. Considering that bargain basement PCs ship w/ GHz+ CPUs and 512MB+, I don’t think you’d notice any performance difference with or without the new features they’ve mentioned.
It’s a friggin text editor, not a word processor. You could probably even run it on your cell phone.
In that case there is always ed. It’s certainly less, although I’m not sure it could be argued to be more.
Given the history of the Unix “less” and “more” commands I can’t figure out if you’re trying to be funny, or just trolling
Weird.
Bloated. Less is more
There is a syntax error in your joke – instead of “Less is more,” you should have:
alias more=’less’
HTH!
For me, these two are really handy:
– Improved Unicode support
– Highlighting of cursor line, cursor column and matching braces
The readme says that it comes with VisVim for Visual Studio. Anyone have any idea how to use it?
Whilst I can understand why some people will feel that features like spell checkers are ‘bloat’ (considering it’s easy to use external spellcheckers like apsell within vim already), it’s my understanding that there was other important factors.
It’s well know that if you wish to support vim, you actually make a donation to a charity that Bram supports. As I recall, donations were offered if the devs implemented certain features.
Fortunately, if you feel vim is bloated, you can always modify the source to remove the bits you don’t like, or you could go back with vi.
Personally, I haven’t noticed that any performance problems. A skateboard is lighter and smaller than a Ferrari, but if there was a race, I know what my money is on!
Every release of Vim is like a stake through the heart of everyone who loves vi.
I will admit that [n]vi + color would be nice, but the whole point of vi is/was to be small and dependant on the UNIX environment for spell checking, sorting, and the like, not to include everything but the kitchen sink (as Emacs did).
At the same time, I’m ashamed to say that I do fall to the dark side and use Vim on occasion.
Don’t be ashamed. Be proud of who you are and the tools you use.
Man have you got it wrong, no offense.
Vim is a *fork* of vi. Don’t get hung up on your notions of what vi and all derivatives should be because, like I said, it is a port and furthermore gvim, for people who want a more complete coding editor, is the most absolutely fantastic piece of software. If you want a light editor for editing config files over a modem line or on a console, great use another editor, like, uh, vi!
Because vim/gvim is not a light config file/etc editor. It is big time, powerhouse, featureful programmers editor that absolutely kicks ass.
Like I said, don’t apply any asthetic that makes sense for vi to vim, they are cousins, not twins.
Because vim/gvim is not a light config file/etc editor.
I disagree completely. I’m both a programmer and sys admin. I use vim/gvim for editing “config file/etc” and I use emacs for coding. I find just plain vi difficult to work with and only use it if I have to (like I’m on an old Sun box or something).
At any rate, we have different points of view.
Have you tried the vi clone elvis? I find myself using it at least as much as vim. It has all the basic features a programmer wants, but feels much lighter than vim on old hardware (such as old Solaris installations, where I spend much time). It’s also very stable. This is the default ‘vi’ on Slackware. Most other Linux distributions have vi aliased to vim.
http://elvis.the-little-red-haired-girl.org/
I have used elvis and I do like it. I’m somewhat concerned with the known issues given that development seems to have ceased. Maybe I should shut up and code.
I mean, does it work on Firefox? Is there an extension available that I should know of?
umm. are you kidding?
I mean, does it work on Firefox? Is there an extension available that I should know of?
http://swaroopch.info/text/How_to_use_Vim_with_Firefox
yeah, right… should use google more, i guess
“Real Programmers Don’t Use Pascal” ( http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html )
‘ Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated into editors running on more reasonably named operating systems– EMACS and VI being two. The problem with these editors is that Real Programmers consider “what you see is what you get” to be just as bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in Women. No, the Real Programmer wants a “you asked for it, you got it” text editor– complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be precise. ‘
With a default ./configure vim gets more and more features which I find very good.
But you can easily turn off nearly _everything_ – even such ‘bloat’ as syntax highlighting if don’t want to have it in your binary.
After that it’s still quite the same vim as you were used to version 5 or so, so why call it bloated?
EDIT: btw. vim7 really rocks, Bram did an excellent work on it. Thank you so much and good luck in your new job at google.
Edited 2006-05-08 17:50
ah, the wonders of compiling from source.
The main reason I use gentoo.
Waiting until we move to our new office next week to set up my dev machine with nix, then I can try it. I don’t think systems has the time right now to install it on the company dev servers.
Tabs will be pretty neat.
Waiting until we move to our new office next week to set up my dev machine with nix, then I can try it. I don’t think systems has the time right now to install it on the company dev servers.
Interesting, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I use Vim on everything that I have a UI for (OSX and Windows variants). I use vi when I am on my HP servers. I have no problem going back and forth and Vim is an absolutely awesone programmers editor!
i hear an awfull lot of complaining and i honestly dont see why. for someone who has been using Vim 7 since the betas i can tell u it is snappy and it is not blotaed. yes is has more feature but they dont get in the way. if u are commenting on this ithout trying please stop and try it out or please dont talk about it. i am sure once u try it your minds will be chaged a little here.
I just have compiled it, and tabs rocks my world! 🙂 This will be sooo good for hacking few projects at once with screen session!
http://bronikowski.com/upload/vim7.png
I like vim for one reason not available with my regular vi which is bundled with the OS.
Color syntax highlighting
Having been using the beta versions for some time now, I can vouch for vim7’s speed and stability. (It has been a year since I last seen it malfunction/crash).
As for being bloated… give me a break, will ya?
An editor that runs on a P133 with 32MB is not bloated!
(In console mode, vim7 eats less then 5MB… and I’m talking about the 64bit version, with huge ctags file loaded and spell check enabled)
G.
Edited 2006-05-09 03:36
I think people mean is it small enough to include on rescue disks or floppy based and CF based embedded installations. Likely not to be placed on these types of installations, it should be called bloated. It does not matter that the majority of home systems have major RAM and hd sizes. Not everything is modeled for the home.
The Firefox comment was funny to me. Clearly poking fun at this whole article and why it even was posted as “OS” news.